A Brownstone That's Pink Inside

Artist Vivian Reiss's Murray Hill house of whimsy.

- WENDY GOODMAN

The Parlor

The first room you enter off the street was covered in cedar and big pink floor tiles with a popcorn ceiling, "but the minute I walked into the house," Vivian Reiss says, "this was the room that caught my imagination." The paintings are hers, and she restored the architectural details.

THE CIRCA-1850 townhouse looks conventional enough from the street. But once through the doors, you're in Vivian Reiss's world. One room is painted ballet-slipper pink, and all the walls are hung with her big colorful paintings. Reiss says, "I had this idea of a Gustavian color palette," meaning the late-18th-century Swedish décor popular during the reigns of Gustav III and IV. "Not that it had anything really to do with the house. But that's what I thought. There is a lot of pink in the house, which might seem kind of yuck, but it's not."

The Library

The custom sofas are covered in Pierre Frey fabric. The painting of irises above the fireplace is by Reiss, and the hanging spherical light fixture is a Moooi knockoff.

The Dining Room

"The red lip chair from an art-supply store I bought eons ago," Reiss says. The painting is of her daughter. The wood paneling and built-in sideboard are original.

The Main Bathroom